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Christmas Blog Cabin
This is my review of what I have found interesting in the law (and related) blogosphere. It’s been an explosive time for legal bloggers, and I hope that this blogpost is a true reflection of a part of what’s currently exciting at the moment. I strongly encourage you to look further at these blogs, for example while enjoying sherry, roast turkey or chicken and chestnuts over a log fire. We do not have a log fire in the log cabin for ‘elf and safety reasons.
Krish recently had a piece in the Guardian, also posted on his blog here. It’s particularly pertinent for me as I probably will resume my hunt for a good training contract next year. In the meantime, I will do some vacation scheme placements. Actually, given that I am not panicking about training contracts now, I feel a weight has been lifted from my mind, and I can actually begin to enjoy my life again. I found applying for a training contract very nauseating this year, especially since one top firm failed to implement my reasonable adjustments the first time around and wasted a fortnight of my time before not calling me for interview, and another simply did not bother to write to me at all as to whether I’d be coming for interview or not. I therefore have a contempt for the recruitment process, and feel with such behaviour I am better off enjoying my study of the LPC which begins at the BPP Law School on January 3rd 2012.
In the face of such impressive ineptitude, I have found solace in the substantive issues of the law. I believe strongly that the law should be necessary, balanced and proportionate, and I feel that the police and the criminal justice system should be there to solve the problems of society not to create them. Natasha Philips mentioned her ‘Researching Reform’ activities concerning the London riots in a quick blogpost. The reader’s comment demonstrates graphically how the balance must be struck correctly, for the public to have faith in the reputation of the criminal justice system. The legal doctrine of proportionality is a pervasive one throughout English and European law.
Will Van Zwanenberg is a student at the Bar, and his blog ‘Propping up the Bar’ is a very elegantly presented explanation of critical issues for barristers, including of course human rights. Will took a fascinating look recently at the eviction at Dale Farm in a very readable critical analysis. Will felt that the eviction of travellers from Dale Farm in Essex raised the question of whether Basildon Council’s actions will be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, as directly applied in the UK via The Human Rights Act 1998.
The thing about the legal blogs is that they make the law come to life in a way that the GDL, LPC or LLM do not seem able to. For example, a compulsory component of the LPC is Business Law Practice, and towards the end students are guided through insolvency law as it happens in England. In an amusing but highly educational way, the Legal Bizzle has been charting the events leading to the ultimate administration of the Santa Claus Group (fictional). Legal Bizzle’s blogs are exceptional, and I look forward to coming back to some from the ‘archives’ in the next few months.
If the last few weeks are anything to go by, 2012 should be a sensational year for legal blogs here in the UK!
LegalAware blog cabin
Recent blog review uptil 4 December 2011
This has been a very interesting week for bloggers in the world of LegalAware. The legal blogs have been a useful gateway for me discovering what is happening in specialised areas of the law, such as @lawandsexuality’s blogpost featuring a call for academic papers in law, gender and sexuality. At roughly the same time as I had been to a conference on outcomes-focused regulation organised by @InfoPlanPR and others, which I reported on this blog and where I had been told Tesco law did not exist, @johnaflood reported on the expansion of Tesco law in Ireland.
I feel that it is important to keep an eye on what is happening in society, for the legal world to react to it and to be a part of it. In a powerful post, @PrincessofVP articulated her impressions of suicide, including the motivations of people who wish to commit suicide. Occasionally, these worlds converge, and @Charonqc recorded a very noteworthy podcast with the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, on assisted dying and his amendment to the Suicide Act which had been defeated in the Lords, and secondly his thoughts on the reasoning behind establishing a new Supreme Court and the direct it may, in time, take.
Lawyers need above all need to be sensitive to the world around them. For example, #occupyLSX has been an issue close-to-my-mind, not in fact because of the anti-capitalist sentiments, but because it makes my journey from NW1 to EC3 a complete nightmare. @legalacademia has recently conducted an interview with an activist involved in ‘Occupy Cardiff’. The highlight for the week for me was @LegalBizzle who recently made a number of striking observations in his blogpost entitled, “My wife is a parasite”. In a post which I liked immensely, LegalBizzle makes the point that these actions are disruptive and in the self-interest of public sector stakeholders, arguably, but these actions most importantly are lawful. LegalBizzle critically argues against chucking abusive terms at public sector workers. It’s incredibly easy to be whipped up into a frenzy, but, in what I thought was also a brilliant blogpost, @_millymoo reviews a number of recent events in the media and cautions against a hasty reaction.
I feel this every week in fact; that the English law has to deal with some of the most complicated issues that can possibly be thrown at it. For example, Carl Gardner has recently reviewed the issue of a ‘right to respond’ by people who might suffer reputation damage at the hands of the media in a blogpost which had made reference to Alastair Campbell’s (@campbellclaret) recent evidence at the Leveson inquiry. There is, of course, a fine line between defamation and freedom of expression, but @PaulBernalUK recently offered an excellent perspective on the conflict between expression and privacy, in relation to Julian Assange amongst others, in a blogpost entitled “Heroes and villains”. Dealing with the public is an occupational hazard of being a lawyer, whatever field you’re in, and @MagicCircleMinx proposed that lawyers are like lemons in a recent blog offering. Arguably, also, lawyers should listen to other lawyers, as indeed @OccupytheInns proposed in a somewhat controversial proposal on the up-and-coming Legal Cheek blog, in an article entitled “Milionnaire lawyers should fund pupillages”.
